


Points in Time

by cheriiredmoon



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Drabble Collection, Everyone Is Alive, M/M, Occasional Unresponsible Alcohol Use By a Legal Adult In Their Own Home, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Profanity, Sadstuck, cleaning compulsion, domestic life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-11
Packaged: 2017-11-15 23:45:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheriiredmoon/pseuds/cheriiredmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Living in a new world after the game presents its own set of challenges, even to those who have endured worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sometimes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rollingjules](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rollingjules/gifts).



> Because Jules rocks the DavTav OTP, and I was drinking at the time I started it anyway. No robot legs here.

Tavros walks in to the smell of burning appliance motor and spilled alcohol. Dave is playing music from the bedroom, something quiet and more mournful than he's used to from the cool kid. The troll sets his bag down by the door and toes off his shoes next to the rack that holds a fair portion of Dave's self-proclaimed "unbelievably shitty swords." He doesn't know why the human keeps them if they're so terrible, but Dave and his Bro have always been a touch strange.

The kitchen is a mess of mixology gone wrong. There are more varieties of alcohol sitting open on the counters and table than Tavros thinks is entirely healthy. The blender is probably the source of the burnt motor smell and the smoke that it releases from beneath its base when he lifts the pitcher confirms the suspicion. 

"Dave?"

The living room is littered with the plastic cups the Hero of Time didn't feel like rinsing out between drinks and he almost crushes a few underfoot as he crosses over to the bedroom at long last. Dave is sprawled across the bed, his long, pale body thrown down as if he just didn't have it in him to arrange himself. He shows no sign of noticing Tavros' entrance, mouthing the words of the song to himself a breath or two too late to be in time with the song. 

If he isn't in perfect awareness of time, then he is slipping along in his haze of timeslide depression. During the game it was the dead Daves piling up from the mistakes made and his awareness of them. Now it is the memory of the dead Daves and all of the dead Daves there will ever be and the aching of embracing the death of what he is but isn't.

Tavros crawls over the flung-out arms of his matesprit and makes himself as comfortable as he can on the overly soft bed before hauling up the nearly boneless boy. The human is soft and pliant against him and he arranges himself so that he can stretch out on his back and pull the living limpness that is Dave onto his chest. His horns are easier to handle when he's on his back and the throbbing of his blood pusher helps his wayward lover slide back into the proper time mind sometimes.

The once-Page of Breath cradles the still-sometimes-Knight of Time and waits for him to come home.


	2. Never

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tavros has leftover issues too.

The first thing that hits Dave when he gets home is the lemony fresh death that comes from too much cleaner in mop water. The second is the shock that his rack of unbelievably shitty swords is organized and gleaming, every blade facing the same way at the same angle and stacked from smallest at the top to largest at the bottom. He slowly drops his bag next to the door, wincing at how grubby it looks next to the shining sword rack. He’s almost terrified to kick off his shoes for fear that they will set off yet another goddamned universe-wide apocalypse and this time it’ll be his fault and not the Spider8itch’s. Like the dead Daves were not enough on his fucking plate.

“Tav?”

His voice is more confident than his shoe removal and he’s glad for it. Tavros sees way too much of his little weak parts as it is. No way in hell he’s going to shame himself by being uncomfortable walking into his own home. The living room, however, knocks him back down to the mildly terrified teenage boy he was when the game started and he was barely able to walk between rooms without encountering puppets or a Bro-fight. Except instead of smuppet ass or shitty ninja swords, he has to confront the evidence of his boyfriend’s inner turmoil.

Nothing is where he put it and everything is shining like it’s being showcased on the HSN or some shit. The vacuum tracks in the carpet are all perfectly straight and the lingering odor of carpet-cleaning powder mixes with the lemon death and sticks in his throat. There are no magazines or CD cases on the table, the DVDs are in order according to the color of their cases (and sub categorized within themselves by the color of the title text on the spine), and there isn’t a single water ring on the glass of the coffee table. From the living room he can hear the sound of the shower running and terror clenches his heart in its icy fist for just a moment.

Dave takes two deep breaths (one for Tavros and one for himself) before moving to the bathroom door, tapping with one knuckle and not waiting for a response before walking in. The first time he did so Tavros was on the shower floor, frantically scrubbing his legs and feet. This time he can see the silhouette of the troll behind the curtain, hear him humming, smell the shampoo that he says helps his mohawk sit up like its supposed to. Dave’s heartbeat gradually slows and he lets a smile quirk the edge of his mouth.

“You know Longhorn, someone might just walk in and take advantage of you if you keep spacing out like that.”

“Someone like you Shades?”

The troll pokes his head out from around the edge of a curtain, careful not to catch the thin plastic on his impressive horns. They’ve gone through enough curtains because of that and he just sprayed these down with bleach and water so they’re nice and clean. Neither talks about the fact Dave walked into the bathroom in a haze of terror. Nor do they mention that the living room and the rest of the apartment are spotless because when Tavros was in his wheelchair he couldn’t clean so now mess drives him crazy and he gets a little caught up in it sometimes. They never do. Instead Dave just shucks his shirt and pants, sliding into the shower stall next to Tavros and pressing himself against the warm, firm flesh of his lover/boyfriend/matesprit/friend while the troll pours some shampoo into the blond hair tickling his chin.


End file.
